My close Bangladeshi and international colleagues who remain have dug in for the long haul. Doctors and nurses, water engineers, sanitation experts and community workers have all stayed to provide lifesaving services to the people who need them most.

While we bemoan the inconvenience of COVID-19 restrictions here in Australia, physical distancing and regular handwashing are privileges beyond reach for the almost one million people crammed in to the camps.

Standing in the middle of the camps, thousands of tightly packed shelters made from bamboo and tarpaulin are clustered across hills stretching kilometres towards the horizon. This is as densely occupied a space as Manila, the most heavily populated city on earth.

In a corona context, it is more than six times the population density of Wuhan, and much more cramped than most cruise ships that have become COVID incubators.

Camera IconSince the outbreak of COVID-19, preventive measures have been taken to keep the refugee camp safe. Credit: Supplied, Bangladesh Red Crescent Society

In recent days, there have been more cases of COVID-19 in Cox’s Bazar town, just kilometres from the camp. It is a coronavirus ticking time bomb.

Anjum Ara lives with six other women and their children in their small home in the camp. They arrived in 2017 as part of a huge influx of people fleeing violence in Rakhine State, just across the border in Myanmar.

Anjum lost both her home and her husband. It was the biggest mass movement of people in Asia in decades and one of the largest the world has ever seen in such a short time frame.

Now it’s the health and safety of her daughters that worries Anjum most.

In the past year, Anjum’s family and everyone living in these camps have faced serious diphtheria, measles and cholera outbreaks. Diarrhoea is still deadly for many children and respiratory infections, which transmit much like COVID-19, are widespread.

Compounding Anjum’s fear is the forthcoming monsoon season, which from May to October threatens to flood the camps and turn narrow dirt pathways into raging streams. In just three months, more rain falls in the camps than in tropical Darwin in a year.

Camera Icon28-year-old Aziza shares a moment with her son after they receive medical care at a mobile health clinic being run by Bangladesh Red Crescent Society and ICRC in the Bangladesh camps. Credit: Supplied, Bangladesh Red Crescent

Thankfully, Anjum and her neighbours have undergone training in how to strengthen their small homes to keep their families safe. Teams of volunteers have built new drainage and reinforced hillsides to prevent landslides.

Yet it is hard to feel hopeful when you’re dealing with such mammoth odds. That is why the Bangladeshi and international humanitarian workers in Cox’s Bazar are working tirelessly, day and night, to train more community volunteers to spread lifesaving health and hygiene messages.

Hygiene and sanitation supplies are being distributed across the camps. More water pumps have been installed and community information hubs opened. Meanwhile, humanitarians and local authorities work together at a frantic pace to set up much needed isolation and treatment facilities.

Camp residents are working just as hard as the humanitarian workforce. Given the trauma they have suffered over decades of displacement, their resilience is remarkable. But they are also scared.

I’ve been speaking online with a couple of youth leaders from the camps. Given the longstanding telecommunications restrictions in place, I assume they’re using phones they’ve purchased from the black market.

Camera IconVolunteers have been going door-to-door to inform people on how to prevent COVID-19. Credit: Supplied, Bangladesh Red Crescent Society

Normally they would be working in the markets, community centres or child-friendly spaces. Since these were closed down, they have more time to deal with the immense challenges they face.

Just like Anjum, they are engaging via radio and community networks, pleading with their community to follow the rules around physical distancing and washing hands. So far so good.

Despite speculation of suspected cases, and a deficit in proper testing facilities, the camps remain officially free of COVID-19. They are closed to all visitors, with the exception of those providing critical humanitarian services.

If life was not tough enough in the camps, the economic fallout of COVID-19 will certainly reveal the ruptures. Bangladesh has been generous in its accommodation of an additional million people in Cox’s Bazar but now it needs support from the rest of the world to prevent catastrophic death and suffering.

Until then, all I can do is check in with my colleagues and join the rest of the community as it collectively holds its breath.